groan™ your way to success!

8/6/2019 GROAN Your Way to Success!

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GROAN Your Way to Success!by Michael Neill

Eleven years ago, a friend and I sat down and made a list of all the different thingsthat could possibly stop us from doing what we wanted to do with our lives -everything from insufficient talent to the outbreak of World War III. Eventually, wewhittled our list down to nine things - nine categories of obstacle that stood betweenus and living the life of our dreams.

Over the next few years, I tested and refined the model against the experience ofhundreds of clients and trainees, and then began using and teaching it consistentlyas a formal model for obstacle analysis in goal setting. People have used the modelto help themselves overcome everything from difficult people at work to agoraphobia;from dealing with a messy divorce to starting a new career at the age of 50ish.

G is for Goal

As a rule; your goal is the target you are aiming for - the desired end result ratherthan the process you are planning on using to get there. Check whether your goal isa result or a process, and adapt it accordingly.

R is for reality

OK, so you know what you want. Where are you in relation to that? What resourcesdo you have? Who can you ask for help? What have you tried so far? What have theresults been?

O.A. is for Obstacle Analysis

At the heart of the G.R.O.A.N model is the Obstacle Analysis Grid - a way ofseparating out the 9 major categories of life obstacle and choosing appropriateresponses and interventions accordingly. Most people find that while all thecategories are somewhat relevant, their major life obstacles consistently fall into oneor two of the "obstacle areas" on the grid.

Information Skill Belief /Possibility

Health /Energy

OtherPeople

Motivation

Time Money Fear


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1. Information

Earlier this week, my six year old son was in tears, insisting that the report he wassupposed to do for his school and had been putting off until the last minute was"stupid, boring, and too hard" (words I'm sure those managers and leaders among

you have never heard from your colleagues and subordinates! :-).

I asked him what part of the assignment he didn't understand, and he said "all of it"!After a few more questions, it became clear that what was making it so difficult forOliver to finish his report was neither a character flaw (like laziness) nor a physicalproblem (like dyslexia) but a simple lack of information - he'd never seen a reportand he genuinely didn't know how to do it.

We went to his school, asked to look at a few "model" reports, and tonight he handedme his first opus - "All About the Black Rhino" - which I'm sure will be available inyour local bookstores soon! :-)

2. Skill

Sometimes what's stopping us is a lack of skill - i.e., we're just not good enough atwhat it is we're supposed to be doing to succeed.

When I first introduced this model in a workshop in London, someone pointed outthat each of the nine life obstacles also represented a skill set - a set of usefulbehaviors that could be learned and mastered. Ever since then, I've encouragedpeople that if they're only going to focus on developing their strengths in oneobstacle area, focus on this one - learning how to learn and developing the skill of

developing skills!

3. Possibility / Belief

"What, sir! You would make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting abonfire under her decks? I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such

nonsense."Napoleon Bonaparte to Robert Fulton, inventor of the steam engine

My favourite quote about impossibility, besides Mr. Bonaparte's aforementioned

comments, comes from author Barry Neil Kaufman - "All things appear impossibleuntil someone makes them happen."

However, there are occasions where what holds us back is more to do with the lawsof nature than the law of the self-fulfilling prophecy (beliefs!), and it is useful toacknowledge those limitations early on in any endeavour.

4. Health / Energy

I recently had my first and only migraine, and while I will admit to marveling at the"inner light show" that my brain was providing me, I was equally amazed at the

prospect of trying to do anything remotely functional while it was going on. Phraseslike "if you don't have your health, you don't have anything"may overstate the case


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slightly, but the phrase "if you don't have your health, you tend not to do anything"seems to be fairly accurate.

My personal definition of health comes from the Hawaiian tradition - "free flowingenergy". The more freely flowing my energy is, the healthier I am; the more restricted

my energy (and when would now be a good time to take a deep breath and relax?,the more dis-ease I experience in my bodymind.

5. Other People

At the center of the grid is other people, because there is virtually nothingworthwhile we can achieve in life without them. The question is to what extent are weseeing the people in our lives as resources or obstacles.

There are a gazillion books on how to improve and enhance your relationships -while you're working your way through them, try the simple "trick" of increasing the

levels of attention, honesty, and acceptance you give to others and prepare to beamazed at how quickly even your most "difficult" relationships turn from energydrains into energy-building assets.

6. Motivation

Somehow, the concept of motivation seems to be inextricably linked in our collectiveunconscious with the symptoms of adrenaline addiction. We need our "fix" eachmorning, so we plug a cassette into our car radio and let Tony Robbins set us up forthe day.

(I have a theory that the reason so many motivational speakers encourage people togive up coffee and other caffeinated beverages is that they perform essentially thesame function and are technically in competition with the motivational speakers. :-)My experience with people who cite motivation as a key Obstacle area is that theyare generally up against one of three things. Inertia (an object at rest tends to stay atrest), learned helplessness (the idea that nothing they do will make any difference sowhy do anything at all), or "shoulds" - those things we know we ought to do becausesomeone else told us so.

7&8. Time and Money

I often lump time and money together because they have so much in common. Bothare generally viewed as limited resources, controlled by others. And most problemsthat are associated with both time and money can be solved by consistently takingone frightfully simple action:

Write it Down!

Not sure how much you're spending? Write it down!Worried about missing an appointment? Write it down!Wondering whether the money you're earning is worth the time you're spending?

Write it down!


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Why is writing things down is so important when it comes to time and money? It'sbecause they don't really exist! Both are man-made, abstract constructs originallydesigned to make our lives easier but often resulting in making our lives far morecomplex. And as anyone who's ever slept through a philosophy class can testify,trying to hold abstract concepts in our minds is exhausting.

Writing things down relating to time and money help take them out of the realm ofthe abstract and bring them down into the realm of the concrete, where mathreplaces myth and the secret of wealth turns out to be so boring (spend less thanyou earn and let compound interest do the rest) that no-one ever believes it could bethat simple.

(If you believe money really exists, spend a few days studying the Futures marketsor economics 101. As my stockbroker housemate explained to me , "If you pretendall those zeroes don't mean anything, losing a billion dollars is really quite easy todo!")

9. Fear

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.And when it has gone...there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

from Dune, by Frank Herbert

Fear is a psychosomatic response to negative expectancy - that rush of adrenalinewe release when we expect something bad (i.e., something we do not want) tohappen. Faith is a psychosomatic response to positive expectancy - the rush ofendorphins we release when we expect something good (i.e. something we want) tohappen

If you want to overcome the obstacle of Fear, there are three basic paths:

a. Psyche - learn to re-direct the movies you make in your mind

b. Soma - learn to use the chemical factory that is your body to your own advantage

c. Expectancy- learn to manage your expectations (or if you're feeling particularly

daring, why not enjoy the moment and drop expectations altogether?)

N is for Next steps

Once you've identified the key obstacle area for yourself, you can immediately beginto leverage it by studying that area and gradually (or quickly) implementing moreeffective systems and strategies. Every action you take and change that you make inthe area of your major life obstacles will reap multiple rewards.

An unexpected bonus to using the Obstacle Analysis Grid is that the diagnosis canalso be "the cure" - just becoming aware of where we're stuck is often enough to

"unstick" us and allow us to refocus on our goals and dreams.


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Today's Experiment:

1. Give yourself a score from 1-10 in each of the nine areas, where 1 means this isan area of total weakness for you and 10 means this is an area of total strength.

2. When people tell you about their problems (and they will!), ask questions that helpyou identify which of the nine obstacle areas their problems most naturally fit.Remember, just because someone tells you their problem is "procrastination" doesn'tmean the obstacle is "Motivation". The following nine questions will serve as a usefulguide

Are they experiencing a problem because:

1. They don't know what to do? (Information)2. They know what to do but they don't feel capable of doing it? (Skill)3. They don't believe it can be done? (Belief/Possibility)

4. They don't have the energy to do it? (Health/Energy)5. Other people stand in their way? (Other people)6. They just don't seem to care enough? (Motivation)7. They don't have the time? (Time)8. They don't have the money? (Money)9. They are scared? (Fear)

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